The Ladies

By Doris Grumbach

Book Overview

The Ladies is a touching, imaginative retelling of the story of two of history's most interesting characters: Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, well-born Irish women who defied all conventions of their eighteenth-century Irish homeland and eloped to the small hamlet of Llangollen in Wales, where they lived as a married couple. There, removed from the eyes of the world, they hoped to live out their quiet lives. But the world outside gradually came to claim the Ladies--first out of curiosity, but eventually on the basis of profound respect, and even love. Visited by such luminaries as Edmund Burke, William Wordsworth, Walter Scott, and Horace Walpole, among many others, Eleanor and Sarah became known throughout Britain and to history as the "Ladies of Llangollen."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393310922
• ISBN13: 9780393310924
• Release Date: November 1993
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A Historical Novel of a Lesbian Couple in 18th Century Ireland

This is a lovely historical novel about two lesbians in 18th century Ireland. They are totally devoted to one another and overcome all sorts of obstacles in order to establish themselves as a family unit on the 'Plas Newydd'. They are quite an eccentric pair. They are a classic 'masculine' (butch) and feminine couple. They entertain critics, writers, royalty, etc. in their home. The novel hypothesizes how a cultured couple...

The Ladies

This is just a sweet old fashioned love story... a lesbian love story that is. I happened upon a hardcover copy in a used bookstore. The cover looked idyllic, pastoral... two ladies dressed in riding habits, surveying the english countryside. It is a story of the enormous risks they took to be together, and the creative life of beauty that they shared until death. I loved the descriptions of their daily lives... how they...